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+--- Thread: CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? (/thread-14832.html)
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Drew Phipps - 26-06-2016
I watched the first episode of CNN's "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies" today. It related the story of CIA recruit "Trigon" and apparently the first female Iron Curtain CIA case agent Marti Peterson. You can watch the video of the show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYBZe5AcEOM
Marti recently wrote a book about her life which includes this incident. You can learn more about her book "The Widow Spy" here:
http://books.blogs.starnewsonline.com/15464/the-widow-spy/
[Full disclosure: I haven't read the book]
Her husband was a CIA guy in Laos in 1971, where he died. She, who was then serving in a clerical position for the CIA, applied for and eventually became a case agent. Her first post was Moscow. This part of the story is inspiring enough in a "glass ceiling" sort of way up to this point.
However, now it gets weird. As a fledgling case agent her first assignment was the "single most important and well placed" CIA asset, Alexsandr Ogorodnick, AKA "Trigon," that the CIA has in place in Moscow. If you believe the show, she was given the opportunity because the KGB would never suspect a woman to be a case agent. [Excuse me? Remember Mata Hari? Virginia Hall? Princess Noor? Violette Szabo? Even if these aren't household names, I bet the KGB has heard of them.]
Long story short: Trigon unexpectedly is "captured" and "commits suicide after arrest." Marti Peterson is arrested (red-handed with spy equipment) and sent to Lubyanka and interrogated for three days. She is then apparently released under diplomatic immunity. [I thought spies weren't covered by diplomatic immunity, remember Gary Powers?]
Here is the CIA's version of events: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/trigon-spies-passing-in-the-night.html?dom=pscau&src=syn
Here's the kicker that convinced me that this story is 50% hogwash: The CIA agent that initially handled Trigon and gave him that name was none other than Aldritch Ames, the second most successful KGB penetration of the CIA there ever was, now serving a life sentence in an American prison. https://intelnews.org/2012/04/16/01-970/
If Ames recruited this guy in 1973, and he was unexpectedly captured in 1977, then I can't help but wonder if the publicly available story that he started working with the Soviets in the mid 80's is true either. ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich_Ames
The TV show and the CIA website just don't happen to mention Ames, which omission I find problematic. Propaganda piece? Almost certainly. The second episode of the show, about Saddam Hussein, airs tonight on CNN.
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Albert Doyle - 27-06-2016
If CNN is showing it you can be guaranteed the program is bs.
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?15812-CNN-CIA-Program#.V29BC72PNNE
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Albert Doyle - 27-06-2016
Just watched the Saddam episode. Yeah, good guy propaganda.
One technical mistake they made. When you invade a country on pre-meditated lies the domestic opposition you face is not properly called an 'insurgency'. It is correctly called a 'resistance'.
Another scary thing is considering that the military apparatus that conducted the take-over of Iraq and military arrest, torture, and interrogation standard seen in the program is the same one that exists here in America only under less of an outward appearance.
Nothing in the program about how these good guy heroes have unleased the ISIS problem on the world with their illegal invasion.
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Drew Phipps - 27-06-2016
I recorded it but haven't watched yet. Don't give away the ending.
I was hoping there would be some cautionary tale in there about the (ahem) "failure of intelligence" about the WMD issue, i.e. that German intelligence asset whose reports of WMD were supposedly relied on. It was probably too much to hope for.
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Tracy Riddle - 27-06-2016
I can no longer watch any MSM "documentaries" about anything historical/geo-political. It only takes a few minutes for me to start spotting errors and distortions, and then I start getting angry. My blood pressure doesn't need it. ::face.palm::
CNN TV show "Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies;" is it for real or a snow job? - Albert Doyle - 27-06-2016
Drew Phipps Wrote:I recorded it but haven't watched yet. Don't give away the ending.
I was hoping there would be some cautionary tale in there about the (ahem) "failure of intelligence" about the WMD issue, i.e. that German intelligence asset whose reports of WMD were supposedly relied on. It was probably too much to hope for.
They avoided it all together and just focused on the brave interrogator who tracked down Saddam (ends justifies the means).
The skirted around it by saying sometimes the intelligence was just people with an agenda or grudge that led to innocent people being killed. (In other words we were victims too). Good guy victims in an noble cause.